What inspires you?

That must be the hardest question for any artist to answer. I have whole days at the drawing board moving stones around. And then around some more. Creativity sneaks up like a scent you walk into but can't pin down.  It insists on a place inside of you but never quite cooperates.

I find the best inspiration attached to the most familiar and deeply personal things around me. My favorite place in my house is my top dresser drawer. There's a round geode in there I bought years ago from a gem show. "Gaaauranteeeeed" the man said, to be the real thing when cracked open. I will not, however, crack it open. Ever.

I have an Egyptian cartouche with my initials in hieroglyphs, my retainer, pennies that mean good luck because I found them facing heads up. I have a special edition box of crayons I never intend to use, "People Colors." I just like the gathering of them, all perfect. I like to read the colors out loud, maize, burlap, spice.

I have the most well written thank you note I've ever received, and have often copied. I have a sealed envelope of journal entries that I ripped in retrospect from their notebooks because they were far too incriminating to be left in context.

I have a fantastic collection of headbands that I imagine wearing, if only I had someone else's forehead. There's a vintage tea towel printed with the year of my birth, a Ping-Pong ball, two double and triple A batteries, lithium. I have a key that I once hid for safekeeping, though now I don't know what it unlocks. I have Chanel red lipstick in my drawer that I will never use but wish I would.

Sometimes I think, what if I died and someone looked in my drawer. I wonder what they would understand about me. Probably not so much. For one thing, they would get the crayons wrong, and probably the headbands. I'm certain they wouldn't see a jewelry designer, but just a person much like themselves. In my drawer I see a reverence for the most ordinary, a place to respectfully visit and be reminded of how mundane, and spectacular, and nuanced life is for each one of us. And for me, that reminder is what's most inspiring.